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Title: You Gotta Have Wa by Robert Whiting ISBN: 0-679-72947-X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 03 October, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (16 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The National Past Time...of Japan
Comment: Professional baseball is as important, if not more so, to Japanese culture as it is to American culture. Whiting humorously demonstrates the "culture clash" that has happened so many times when American Major Leaguers get lured to Japan to play on professional teams. The history of how the game developed in Japan is also well told here. If sports indeed mirrors society, as I believe it does, this book tells us as much about Japanese society as it does about Japanese baseball.
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting Book About American Ballplayers in Japan
Comment: In describing the Japanese game of baseball and the problems it has caused Americans attempting to play that game, Whiting succeeds in painting a vivid picture of the differences between the American and Japanese cultures. After reading this book, I came away feeling that both countries could learn from each other: by learning about how the Japanese live their lives, Americans could become more dedicated to their jobs and less self-centered; meanwhile, the American way of life could teach the Japanese to be more independent and less willing to always sacrifice their own well-being and that of their families for the good of their teams (or companies). A happy median between the two extremes of the cultures would result in better environments for everyone. In reaching these conclusions about the two countries, I realized that this book was much more than just another volume on baseball. If you're looking for a pure baseball book, you may want to try something else; however, Whiting's effort is a memorable one and I would advise that you don't pass it up. The stories of Americans trying to play baseball and acclimate themselves to the new, strange environment of Japan are both humorous and unsettling at the same time. Because these players are foreigners -- and especially because they are American foreigners -- they receive a special stigma and must deal with much more pressure than a normal Japanese player. The Americans are usually paid a lot of money to play in the land of the rising sun, which only adds to the widespread belief in Japan that these players are primma donnas who care more about the money than they do about winning. Some of the Japanese training methods will strike American readers as bizarre, if not completely ridiculous. Subjecting players to the thousand-fungo drill and making tired starting pitchers throw 200 pitches on their off-days are just a couple of the off-the-wall ideas championed by Japanese baseball's greatest thinkers. These methods may seem more harmful than beneficial, but one has to respect the work ethic and the dedication of the Japanese players. Even if you are not a baseball fan, you will probably find this book interesting. One of my only beefs with it is that there is no index. That may seem nit-picky and it obviously has nothing to do with the actual content of the book, but once I'd finished the book, I wanted to go back and read about certain incidences that occured with specific players. It would have been nice if I had been able to refer to an index to find the stories about these players instead of having to skim several pages trying to locate those stories. Oh well, it's still a great read.
Rating: 4
Summary: Ya gotta luv it!
Comment: This is a great book on one of the most beautifully esoteric topics out there. This is a subject that can be appreciated more now than ever. Japanese baseball rocks! Let's all just admit that. This history is academic and detailed, yet fun and nostalgic at the same time. In addition, it was written in an era that was void of any present day marketability or "hip", as oppossed to the era of Ichiro and Matsui Hideki, in which commmentaries will certainly contain those oppining in a way void of knowledge or appreciation of that which went before. Thank God that the pure and noble notion of this wonderful sport will always trancend the fraiailties of predjudice.
Go The Tigers!
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Title: Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People's Republic by Susan Brownell ISBN: 0226076474 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: June, 1995 List Price(USD): $32.00 |
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Title: Tokyo Underworld : The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan by Robert Whiting ISBN: 0375724893 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 26 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia by James L. Watson ISBN: 0804732078 Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr Pub. Date: January, 1998 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Slugging It Out in Japan: An American Major Leaguer in the Tokyo Outfield by Warren Cromartie, Robert Whiting ISBN: 4770014236 Publisher: Kodansha International Pub. Date: April, 1991 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Meaning of Ichiro: The New Wave from Japan and the Transformation of Our National Pastime by Robert Whiting ISBN: 0446531928 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: April, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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